The Poetic Edda Index

Grimnismol
1. Hot art thou, fire! | too fierce by far;
Get ye now gone, ye flames!
The mantle is burnt, | though I bear it aloft,
And the fire scorches the fur.
2. 'Twixt the fires now | eight nights have I sat,
And no man brought meat to me,
Save Agnar alone, | and alone shall rule
Geirröth's son o'er the Goths.
3. Hail to thee, Agnar! | for hailed thou art
By the voice of Veratyr;
[2. In the original lines 2 and 4 are both too long for the meter, and thus the true form of the stanza is doubtful. For line 4
both manuscripts have "the land of the Goths" instead of simply "the Goths." The word "Goths" apparently was applied
indiscriminately to any South-Germanic people, including the Burgundians as well as the actual Goths, and thus here has
no specific application; cf. Gripisspo, 35 and note.]
{p. 88}
For a single drink | shalt thou never receive
A greater gift as reward.
4. The land is holy | that lies hard by
The gods and the elves together;
And Thor shall ever | in Thruthheim dwell,
Till the gods to destruction go.
5. Ydalir call they | the place where Ull
A hall for himself hath set;
And Alfheim the gods | to Freyr once gave
As a tooth-gift in ancient times.
6. A third home is there, | with silver thatched
By the hands of the gracious gods:
Valaskjolf is it, | in days of old
Set by a god for himself.
7. Sökkvabekk is the fourth, | where cool waves flow,
[3. Veratyr ("Lord of Men"): Othin. The "gift" which Agnar receives is Othin's mythological lore.
4. Thruthheim ("the Place of Might"): the place where Thor, the strongest of the gods, has his hall, Bilskirnir, described in
stanza 24.
5. Ydalir ("Yew-Dales"): the home of Ulf, the archer among the gods, a son of Thor's wife, Sif, by another marriage. The
wood of the yew-tree was used for bows in the North just as it was long afterwards in England. Alfheim: the home of the
elves. Freyr: cf. Skirnismol, introductory prose and note. Tooth-gift: the custom of making a present to a child when it cuts
its first tooth is, according to Vigfusson, still in vogue in Iceland.
6. Valaskjolf ("the Shelf of the Slain"): Othin's home, in which is his watch-tower, Hlithskjolf. Gering identifies this with
Valhall, and as that is mentioned in stanza 8, he believes stanza 6 to be an interpolation.]
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